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| Ramsey Clark, 1968 (Wikipedia) |
During my politically formative years
in the 1960's and '70's, there was a lot going on. The civil rights
and anti-war movements were operating at full throttle. Lyndon
Johnson's Great Society programs and the environmental movement were
getting underway. In addition to the events and ambiance of that
time, two books played a major role in the development
of my political positions. One was The Other America: Poverty in
the United States by Michael
Harrington. The other was Crime in America: Observations
on its Nature, Causes, Prevention and Control by
Ramsey Clark, Lyndon Johnson's Attorney General from 1967-1969. So much of the discussion on these subjects was, and
is, nothing more than an unthinking reaction to effects.
What distinguished these books from others and from today's general
discourse was their attempt to understand the causes
of these conditions in America - on the one hand, poverty, and, on
the other, crime.
A few relatively
recent news items on our criminal justice system caused me to think
back on Ramsey Clark's excellent work and wonder about the fairness
and effectiveness of our system.
Let's start with
mandatory drug sentences. Historically, mandatory sentencing has discriminated against minorities - for example, in the
disproportionate sentencing for crack as opposed to powder cocaine. The Fair Sentencing Act signed into law in August 2010 remedied this.
The Act was passed just before the Republican takeover of the House
in the November 2010 elections. Fast forward to May 2014 and this
lead paragraph from a story in the Huffington Post: "The
head of the Drug Enforcement Administration is refusing to support a
bill backed by the Obama administration that would lower the length
of mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes, putting her
at odds with her boss Attorney General Eric Holder on one of the
criminal justice reform initiatives he hopes to make a centerpiece of
his legacy." Needless to say, the DEA head is a holdover from
W's administration. What was Obama thinking when he asked her to
stay on?
Addiction is an
illness that needs to be treated. Addressing the hopelessness and
the life conditions that lead to addiction is necessary if we really
want to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it serves the interests of law-and-order demagogues to treat it as a crime. The result:
"The incarceration rate in the United States of America is the
highest in the world. As of 2009, the incarceration rate was 743 per
100,000 of national population (0.743%). While the United States
represents about 5 percent of the world's population, it houses
around 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Imprisonment of America's
2.3 million prisoners, costing $24,000 per inmate per year, and $5.1
billion in new prison construction, consumes $60.3 billion in budget
expenditures." [Wikipedia entry on "United States Incarceration Rate"]
Speaking of
law-and-order, the wing nuts of the right rose to defend the armed
men who threatened Bureau of Land Management agents trying
to remove illegally grazing cattle from Federal land. The dead beat
rancher, to whose "defense" these gun-toting, self-styled militia came, owes the United States more than $1,000,000
in grazing fees! "When the Bureau of Land Management tried to
round up the illegal cattle, [Cliven Bundy, the rancher,] violated yet another court order by
meeting them with a band of armed militia thugs, several of which
pointed semi-automatic assault rifles at federal police officers." [azcentral blog, May 3] Captured in a video is one of these lunatics saying he thought it
would be wise to put women and children in front as human shields (of
course, he didn't use that term). The Federal agents withdrew to
avoid a potential shootout. The FBI is now looking into the armed
standoff and the threats. Seems pretty clear to me - threaten
someone with a lethal weapon, you've violated some law; threaten a
Federal agent with a semi-automatic, you've probably violated a
Federal law.
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| Cecily McMillan at the start of her trial (The Guardian) |
On the other hand,
there's the story out of New York where a woman faces up to 7 years
in prison for "assault on a police officer" as he tried to
remove her from an Occupy demonstration - apparently she hit him in
the eye with her elbow as she was being taken away. The harshness of
the potential sentence is incredible but what is just as unbelievable is
that this first time offender, who never missed a court hearing
date, was denied bail. "Judge Ronald Zweibel ordered that
McMillan, 25, a graduate student at the New School, be detained. He
rejected a request from her lawyers for bail." [The Guardian, May 5] So she'll be spending time on Riker's Island
until she's sentenced on May 19. Various groups are supporting
McMillan. Nine of the twelve jurors who convicted her - unaware of
the sentence she was facing if convicted- have appealed to the judge
for leniency. This is the same judge who denied bail. Good luck.
So let's see if I
have this straight - engage in a peaceful protest, go to prison;
point lethal weapons at Federal agents, be hailed as patriots.
Kafka-esque to say the least.
Update 5/19/2014: Cecily McMillan was sentenced to 3 months behind bars and 5 years probation today.
Finally, let's talk
about the death penalty. I oppose it. The United States is the only industrialized Western nation that still adheres to the barbaric
practice of state executions.
The recent events in Oklahoma where a death-row prisoner was, in essence, tortured to death when the lethal injection process went horribly wrong (I mean more horribly wrong than the basic inhumanity of the death penalty itself ) make the
"cruel and unusual punishment' clause of the Constitution
meaningless.
There is not now,
nor ever has been, a deterrent justification for state executions.
Plainly and simply put, and supported by many studies, executions do
not deter. Vengeance is not an acceptable reason either. The United
States is, or should be, long past the vigilante stage of government.
The death penalty is inconsistent with both our Judeo-Christian
heritage, with our democracy and our Constitution's cruel and unusual
punishment clause.
Add to this the increasing evidence that numerous people on death row are innocent of the crimes for which they've been convicted, that the death penalty
is imposed disproportionately on people of color and those who cannot
afford legal defense, and that it is an expensive process. It soon becomes clear that, in addition to the moral and legal objections to its practice, the death
penalty is unjust, impractical, and ineffective.
We can only hope
that the death penalty will be abolished by the states quickly. We
haven't had a Supreme Court willing to consider the
unconstitutionality of the practice in decades. As of now, just 18
states plus the District of Columbia have abolished the death
penalty. But there is a growing states' movement towards rejoining the civilized
world. At least seven states are reconsidering the death penalty either by declaring a moratorium or by staying executions.
Links
Root cause analysis
is a powerful "quality tool" for problem solving in (to name just a few areas) technical and design issues, risk management, efficiency studies and
safety incident investigations. By understanding root causes, you can prevent the recurrence of the undesired event. Here's a link to an introductory description of the process. (Or you can use the method I employed for much of my working career: "Ask why five times".)
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